


If Wishes Were Fishes

by storm_queen



Category: The Pirates' Mixed-Up Voyage - Margaret Mahy
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 02:12:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2211891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_queen/pseuds/storm_queen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Though they had plenty to eat they did not seem to be getting very rich and, after all, a week seems a long time when you are yearning to make your fortune at once."</p><p>The pirates' adventure began even before they set foot on Island Nine Hundred and Ninety-Nine.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If Wishes Were Fishes

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Morbane](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morbane/gifts).



_"They stole kippers from clippers, figs from brigs, lunches from launches, and so on, and what with these delicacies and some very hot and heavy gingerbread that Toad made, the first week went by quickly enough. However, though they had plenty to eat they did not seem to be getting very rich and, after all, a week seems a long time when you are yearning to make your fortune at once."_

As the _Sinful Sausage_ made for the Thousand Islands and sailed into the open sea, a curious thing happened. All the sightseeing tours and pleasure yachts of Hookywalker, which had kept the crew well fed for a week, began to grow scarcer, and soon there was nothing to eat aboard the ship but Toad’s gingerbread.

“Rumblebumpkin!” swore Captain Wafer, when he realized that even the last of the tea shop tea cakes had been consumed. “I’m as fond of rumfustion and gingerbread as the next man, but a pirate cannot live on confectionery alone!”

All the others agreed that it took away the sparkle of wickedness to eat piratical rations out of pure necessity, except for Toothpick, who had not cared much for the plundered lunches to begin with.

And so it was decided that Winkle, on account of his knees, would keep an eye out for such fish as might make for good eating, while Toad and Brace-and-Bit continued to pedal toward their destination, stopping occasionally to take in the sights of the Thousand Islands.

At first it was entirely too difficult for Winkle to persuade himself to catch any fish, for they were all so beautiful and unique, and everyone knew it was terrible bad luck to catch a warble trout. But after a time had passed Captain Wafer began to give him suspicious looks, and Winkle tossed his hook into the tide.

He hadn’t expected the line to go taut immediately, and with his wobbly knees he was very nearly knocked into the water by the thrashing of the fish. But the captain spotted him and made a dive for the fishing rod, which he wrestled heroically until he had mastered it, and fell backward on the deck. The golden fish, which was nearly as long as a firedrake’s snout and twice as thick, flopped onto his lap, looked at the captain with desperate amber eyes, and began to sing.

The fish’s voice was both doleful and surprisingly gurgling, but the pirates had no trouble deciphering its words (except for Toad, who had cautiously clapped his hands over his ears lest seawater get inside and start to rust.)

_I’ll tell you a tale of a magical fish,_  
 _Endowed with the power to grant every wish._  
 _Alone in the ocean this gold fish did swim,_  
 _Awaiting the chance to incorporate whims,_  
 _That when a skilled fisherman let me swim free,_  
 _I would repay my debt most generously._  
 _To you the good sailor who caught me today,_  
 _Your wildest desires are a moment away!_  
 _And now rack your brains for your dearest ambitions,_  
 _Realized*_  
 _*With just a few terms and conditions._

“Avast!” cried Captain Wafer, who had missed most of the song due to the shock of catching a magical fish. He stood up rapidly and scooted backwards, causing the fish to flop onto the deck, looking irritated at the sudden descent. “What’s the meaning of this singing?”

“He says he’ll grant us one wish if we let him go instead of eating him,” Brace-and-Bit said helpfully, for he had been paying much better attention to the fish.

This cheered the captain up enormously, for of course he was ready to make his fortune, even if it seemed too good to be true. “Then there’s no need to kidnap Humbert Cash-Cash after all!” he exclaimed. “For even if it would have been a dastardly deed, worthy of inclusion in _The_ _Pirates’ Who’s Who,_ surely it is just as piratical to become a millionaire by trickery! We’ll take a fortune in ducats and doubloons,” he added to the fish.

The golden scales gleamed as the fish wriggled slowly, trying to turn to look Captain Wafer in the eye. It began to sing again, in a tune quite different from the first, but just as mournful-sounding.

_The treasure that is mine to share_  
 _Shall not be made of gold;_  
 _Nor jewels prized, nor riches rare,_  
 _Nor wealth that you can hold._

“Ah. Those must be the terms and conditions,” Brace-and-Bit said, and he quickly took off his glasses to polish them, in the hopes of avoiding Captain Wafer’s wrath. Toad and Winkle also tried to look anywhere else.

“And what sort of wishing fish prohibits the acquisition of doubloons?” Lionel Wafer roared, for ever since he had become Captain Wafer, he had even more disdain for rules than he had back in Hookywalker.

The fish opened its mouth again.

_I saw such greed from a fisherman’s wife_  
 _Who then cursed her return to a normal life,_  
 _And I vowed that a few rules would apply,_  
 _So that future wishes would not go awry,_

it explained. If the pirates thought it sounded a little smug, they knew better than to say anything out loud, with the exception of Winkle, who leaned to whisper into Toad’s ear.

“That’s the trouble with non-seafaring folk, spoiling it for the rest of us,” he observed.

But Captain Wafer was already on another track. “The lost Noah’s Ark Tapestry of Hookywalker Museum!” he exclaimed. “We’ll be famous _and_ rich with the reward money!”

_The prohibition against gold  
Includes things to be bought or sold,_

the fish announced succinctly.

The captain took this announcement poorly, quivering with rage as he struggled to form a suitably impressive threat.

“Doom and destiny,” Toothpick announced with some satisfaction. “As if an ichthyoid could offer us real power!”

“I’m weary of this jabbering!” Captain Wafer announced, collecting himself if only to silence Toothpick. “A wish, or I’ll run you through and we’ll dispose of the leftovers!” He waved his sword grandly.

“But surely there’s all sorts of wishes to be gained from the fish,” Brace-and-Bit said in an attempt to placate the captain. “Why you could ask for us all to learn to read!”

“Read?” scoffed Captain Wafer. “Are we landlubbers with library cards?”

None of the pirates had ever owned library cards, of course, and Toothpick was quick to voice his disdain at the thought. “Letters and library cards!” he cried scornfully. “Who ever heard of librarian pirates?”

“We could ask for something altogether different,” Winkle suggested. “Better knees, for example, or even somebody else to join our crew, to take on the most physically demanding parts of cabin boy work.”

“We’re not wasting a wish on your knees, Winkle,” Captain Wafer said sternly. “This is the chance of a lifetime!”

“Begging your pardon, Captain,” Toad said respectfully, “but if we’re putting the fish back in the ocean, should we ask for something else to eat?”

“Barnacles and bilge rats!” Captain Wafer cried in exasperation. “We have enough gingerbread to last us well into the Thousand Islands! None of you men has an ounce of piratical ambition!”

With that, Lionel Wafer thought of his own lifelong dreams of piracy, and following in the footsteps of his moderately successful forebear, and one day even surpassing the first Lionel Wafer’s accomplishments. And he was struck by a revelation of exactly what he should wish for.

“I can’t ask for the doorknob from our destination, because we’d sell it for ready money, I that what you’re saying?” he asked shrewdly. “Or even to successfully obtain Humbert Cash-Cash, because we’d ransom him handsomely.”

_As sailors go, you’re not so bright,  
But finally you’ve got it right,_

the fish said snobbishly, but Captain Wafer was too caught up in his scheme to feel slighted by a sea-creature’s elitism.

“But if we were to ask you to guarantee us a place in _The Pirates’ Who’s Who_ , why, you’d have to do it, so long as I didn’t specify what was supposed to make us famous,” the captain said triumphantly. His hairy chest puffed with pride at the thought of earning a reputation on the high seas.

_Your wish is granted, or will be  
Once you return me to the sea,_

the fish confirmed. If anything, it sounded bored with the captain’s choice, but perhaps it was simply anxious to wet its gills and swim off to find a more decisive captor.

With that, Lionel Wafer wrapped his arms around the fish and heaved it overboard, turning back to his crew with undisguised pride. Toad had covered his ears with his hands once more to avoid the sudden splash, and none of them seemed particularly impressed with Captain Wafer’s wish, but he was undeterred.

“Arrrrr!” he affirmed, in his most practiced piratical cry. “Our fortunes are as good as made! We’ve earned ourselves a place in piratical history!"

"For all the promises that fish made, it could be as the worst pirates in history," Toothpick observed caustically, but the pirate captain was in no mood to listen to such a cantankerous fowl.

"We have already succeeded in raiding most of the pleasure boats in these waters, and our plan to target Humbert Cash-Cash is inspired!" he said. "You are merely jealous that you didn't catch the magical fish, which is laughable, because no one ever heard of a pirate's parrot catching fish. Now onward, men, to Island Six Hundred and Sixty-Six! The diamond doorknob awaits!”

And the diamond doorknob was lure enough for Toad and Brace-and-Bit to resume peddling, while Winkle stared into the water, all thought of further fishing gone from his mind.

“I wonder we didn’t ask for something else to do around here,” he mused. “A puzzle, perhaps. Or even a wrench to unbolt the umbrellas from the deck.”

But as usual, no one paid any attention to Winkle.


End file.
